I was living a life filled with swamps. Sand wet and brown, trees ringed by water levels. Ponds the color of coffee and drainpipes. A grimoire of dark garages and carpets rolled to the curb, tornado sirens, incense burning in living rooms, and moisture in the sheetrock walls. The mystical churning of the Mississippi River. I lived in a blue, stilted house with a yard full of pink azaleas, but my brain could never fetch that word. Amaryllis, astilbe, abelia, agapanthus. These azaleas were taller than the house itself and older than the combined ages of me and my roommate and her little blonde daughter. Planted in a time when the town was half its size, before hotels and box stores popped up along its corridors. Down the road where heat always shimmered above the highway, a rodeo lassoed the days and held me in place, arms by my side, the air cinched from my lungs. Held the way my husband would hold me years later when he’d hug me in the kitchen, and he’d squeeze and squeeze. In my husband’s embrace my ribs bent like they were made of softer material. Cartilage or zip ties or twists of red licorice.